Frank Lockwood

Sir Frank Lockwood (15 July 1846 – 18 December, 1897) was a famous English lawyer and Liberal Party politician.

Lockwood was born in Doncaster. His grandfather and great-grandfather were mayors of Doncaster, and the former for some years filled the office of judge on the racecourse. He was educated at a private school, at Manchester Grammar School, and Caius College, Cambridge.

Called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1872, he joined the old midland circuit, afterwards going to the north-eastern, making in his first year 120 guineas and in the next 265 guineas. From that time he had a career of uninterrupted success. In 1882 he was made a queen's counsel, in 1884 he was made recorder of Sheffield, and in 1894 he became solicitor-general in Lord Rosebery's ministry, and was knighted, having first entered parliament as Liberal member for York in 1885, after two unsuccessful attempts, the one at King's Lynn in 1880, the other at York in 1883. He was solicitor-general for less than a year.

In 1896 Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, Mr Montague Crackanthorpe and Sir Frank Lockwood went to the United States to attend, as specially invited representatives of the English bar, the nineteenth meeting of the American Bar Association. On this trip Sir Frank Lockwood sustained the reputation which he enjoyed in England as a humorous after-dinner speaker, and helped to strengthen the bond of friendship which unites the bench and bar of the United States with the bench and bar of England. He died in London on 18 December 1897.

Lockwood had considerable talent for drawing, inherited from his father, which he employed, chiefly for the amusement of himself and his friends, in the making of admirable caricatures in pen and ink, and of sketches of humorous incidents, real or imaginary, relating to the topic nearest at hand. An exhibition of them was held soon after his death.

References

See Augustine Birrell's biography of Lockwood and "The Frank Lockwood Sketch-Book" (1898).

Entry in "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" by Augustine Birrell revised by H C G Matthew, OUP 2004-8